


Conversations and Definitions

by Alexandrite811



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Advice, Canonical Character Death, Conversations, Developing Relationship, M/M, Pre-Relationship, undetermined relationship - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 02:06:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16986102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexandrite811/pseuds/Alexandrite811
Summary: Gimli takes some time to think over just what Legolas is to him, now that the quest is over. Enter Bilbo Baggins, who finds that he can't resist assisting another elf-befuddled dwarf.





	Conversations and Definitions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starlightwalking](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightwalking/gifts).



> Otherwise entitled "Bilbo is a know-it-all, busybody, that needs hobby because, the moment you let him start talking, he derails your perfectly laid plot..."
> 
> This is the first Gigolas fanfic I've written, so please pardon any character deviations. And thanks to my requester, I've had a blast working on this. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Happy Hobbit Holidays!!!

He may not be exactly the same as when he last trespassed on Lord Elrond’s hospitality, but he was still far from easy beneath the open skies of Rivendell. There was something unsettling about the wide, open atmosphere juxtaposed with the partial concealment provided by the valley walls.

Maybe it was simply being a Dwarf in the home Elves. For all the beauty he’d found in the glow of Lothlorien, there’d been the unmistakable thrum of anxiety mixed with the alien calm that filled those woods.

Even in Edoras, on its lonely crest above the open plains, he hadn’t felt as exposed. Men built with rocks and stone, with timber long separated from forest roots. They carved and cut, pieced and placed each material in a manner that made it different. However well it fit with the surroundings, however well molded to the landscape, each structure was a solid and separate testament to the power and ingenuity of the men that had dared their construction.

He could understand that.

There was something different to the architecture of the Elves. There was a solidity to it, but it wasn’t one born of sweat and tools and the strength of one’s hand. It was one of nature’s endurance. You couldn’t always see the strength of their foundations, but the roots were deep and the supports pliant but sturdy.

It was hard to wrap a mind of stone around the power inherent of a tree. He’d seen enough on his journey to appreciate that sometimes it was the stone cracked under the steady pressure of root, rather than the other way around. Especially if that tree had a score to settle.

Oh, now that had been something to see.

He’d longed for adventure as a young dwarfling and some part of him had still chaffed at having been left behind when the Company had set out to reclaim Erebor. He’d found his own adventure though, his own journey across the face of Middle Earth, and his own company of companions.

He’d learned much on his quest – about the world and himself.

There were places he’d like to visit again and still others he’d only heard of that he’d like to see with his own eyes.

Aragorn had his place to take up, he knew that the hobbits were for home, but in Legolas he might find a traveling companion.

Legolas… now there was a change as perplexing as any. His thoughts on the Elf were a puzzle most days. That he felt drawn to him was undeniable, but the exact definition of his attachment was what eluded him.

“Well now, if that don’t beat all.”

The voice was light and cheerful, breathy and soft with age, but that didn’t stop Gimli’s heart from thumping abruptly at the unexpected interruption. It hadn’t been so long ago that he’d slept uneasily with his axe in hand.

The small figure that stood near looked as if a stray breeze might knock his feet from under him. Bilbo Baggins seemed hardly the stuff of his legend, stooped with years and his weather beaten and wrinkled. Soft, airy curls of white and gray surrounded his aged and kindly face. It was a face that had laughed often and there was a glint to them now that made Gimli aware that he was being laughed at even now.

“And here was I, thinking that once in a lifetime was a stroke of luck.”

“Master Baggins.”

The hobbit bobbed his head briefly but made no other acknowledgement of the greeting. He seemly greatly amused by some internal train of thought.

“Master Baggins?”

“Yes, yes, sorry,” replied the hobbit, moving further into the alcove. “It is just a strange chance that I should live to see another dwarf caught by an elf.”

Gimli started at the frank and seemingly random remark.

The hobbit was laughing now – a full-bodied laugh that shook the small frame and tousled the thinning wisps of hair. Now and then a faded glint of copper peaked beneath the faded strands and when Master Baggins finally recovered enough to open his eyes, Gimli could almost see the hobbit of his father’s tales.

“Master Baggins,” Gimli began.

“Now, now. None of that, do ya hear?” the hobbit interrupted. “Bilbo will do well enough, young master Gimli.”

Gimli knew that his face betrayed his irritation by the way Bilbo’s smile widened.

“Oh! I wish Kili were here now. He would have laughed himself sick!”

The sudden mention of Kili left Gimli winded, caught between the memory of his lost cousin and the anger that the hobbit would use it against him so cruelly. The halfling’s amusement at his predicament was nothing compared to what he imagined his cousin would have thought on the situation.

Bilbo’s smile froze and the light in his eyes dimmed a bit when he met Gimli’s eye.

“I see,” the hobbit commented, closing his eyes and bowing his head briefly.

The smile didn’t completely leave the hobbit’s face, but there was a weary sort of resignation that twisted it. Pale green eyes held a look of sorrow to them now when they found his again.

Gimli could feel his frown deepening in confusion.

“Now then, young Master Gimli,” Master Baggins began. “There’s no sense taking offence where none was given, and I’ll apologize if you took it that way. Your kin, on the other hand, have a great deal to answer to the next time I see them. There are quite a few beards I’ll be pulling when next we meet. Stubborn fools, the lot of them,” he said with a fond smile.

That smile reminded him of Frodo and Gimli found himself fighting back a grin himself.

“And what grievous offense have they committed to earn such a punishment?”

“They never told you about Kili.”

“Tales of my cousin’s deeds are told often by the Company and widely known to all the dwarves of Erebor. I know much of what Kili did for the Company and our people.”

“But not all, it would seem,” Bilbo sighed. “In so doing, they have done a disservice to Kili – a well meant one, I am sure, but a disservice none the less. And, unless I miss my guess, they’ve done an unintentional disservice to you, as well.”

Master Baggins looked off towards a shaded walkway in silence for a moment before firming his mouth and straightening his posture.

“Walk with me a moment, Master Gimli,” the hobbit requested.

Gimli suddenly found himself with an aging hobbit on his arm, walking along the gabled pathways of Rivendell in the rich afternoon sunlight. Of all the things he had seen and done, this moment seemed the most peculiar of them all. He couldn’t pinpoint what made the moment so strange, but he had a strong suspicion that it was the hobbit’s doing.

“What do you know of Tauriel?”

And with that one sentence, Bilbo Baggins made the afternoon turn from notable to surreal.

Suddenly the quiet tranquility of the atmosphere was mingled with a warm voice telling the story of a young dwarf prince and the captain of Mirkwood’s guard.

It started in the darkness of Mirkwood with spiders and rings and elven capture. There was exhaustion and enmity, despair and doubt; and hidden beneath it all a headstrong dwarf took the opportunity to make playful overtures to an elven maiden that had saved his life. It was rash and inept and completely ill-timed.

It was everything that Gimli remembered of Kili during his life.

Gimli was hearing the story of the quest from a new perspective. The danger was still there, the action and the battle, but they were background noise to the new narrative. A grounding point for the almost impossible tale of ill-fated romance.

“I’ve never heard this before now.”

Bilbo smiled ruefully, “Knowing your kin as I do, I suppose that I should not be surprised. Still, if you doubt my words, Bofur should be easy enough to drag it out of…  if plied with enough ale.”

“It’s not that I doubt you, Master Baggins…”

“Bilbo,” the hobbit corrected, though he doubted the dwarf heard him as he lapsed into thought.

It was a bit much to take in at once. And, considering his own situation, it was something he wanted very much to be true.

“And where is this Mistress Tauriel now? I don’t recall her among any of King Thranduil’s emissaries.”

“You wouldn’t, of course. Her actions during the Battle of Five Armies, though heroic in many respects, also brought about her exile. It has been many long years since she stood in the shade of Mirkwood’s trees.”

“Exile?”

“Banishment may be a better term,” Bilbo corrected. “And knowing Thranduil’s mercurial temperament, I do not doubt that if she had returned after a decade or two, he would have welcomed her back with more pleasure than he would have outwardly shown. Still, whether welcoming or no, Mirkwood lies too close to Erebor. Even the strongest hearts can only endure so much, master dwarf.”

Bilbo turned down a narrow corridor and Gimli caught the glint of a silver bead in his short curls. Even more curious than before, he followed him into an open balcony with an overview of one of the many gardens.

“She came here after a time and here she remains.”

Bilbo took a seat on one of the smaller benches, smiling fondly at the view before him.

Gimli took up a stance beside him and followed his gaze. The garden was much like all the rest to him – trees and flowers he could not name surrounding pools and pathways that seemed so delicate that, even just looking, they made his soul long for the thickly carved walkways of home.

It wasn’t the garden that had the hobbit smiling though. It was the two elves seated near one of the deeper reflecting pools. The one facing them had seated herself at the base of a tree, the rich red color of her hair pulled back from her face and blending well with the ancient trunk she leant against. They seemed to be talking and listening by turns. The other was seated on a stone bench opposite their companion. Blonde hair, straight and unadorned, shone like candlelight on fine silver.

Gimli knew him immediately.

“Lothlorien is for those who wish to heal and, sometimes, those who wish to forget.”

Gimi remembered the soothing glow of the ancient trees and the weight that had seemed to fall from him once he’d relaxed. He knew the spell that the Lady and her woods could cast upon those beneath them. It was indeed a place to heal from the wearies of the mortal world and he imagined that in such a place memory might lose itself amidst the song of the leaves.

“Imladris, though… Imladris is for waiting.” Bilbo sighed. “And so, we wait.”

“You never went back to the Lonely Mountain.”

Even Gimli didn’t know if he had meant that to be a statement or a question, but he waited on his companion’s next words, his gaze still watching the two figures before him.

“No, I did not,” Bilbo spoke solemnly, and within those words was a wealth of regret and emotion. “I once thought I would. I dreamed of visiting the lonely mountain again and seeing it myself, rather than through the tales of my companions. Each time I set myself up to go, my heart grew heavier and heavier, until my feet all but fumbled just stepping out my door. Every excuse to postpone the trip was a blessing and the quiet joy I felt each time I delayed became another layer of quiet guilt.”

Gimli took a brief glance at his companion. He took in the closed eyes and bowed head before turning quickly back to the garden’s occupants.

“Then there was Frodo. He made the Shire new and fresh and beautiful again. The longing and guilt settled quietly beneath layers of home and family.” Bilbo leaned back, settling himself. “He gave me a contentment with my life that I hadn’t had since Gandalf and thirteen dwarves barged into my smial. But then, he also kept the dream of adventure kindling quietly in my soul with his curiosity and questions. He loved my stories and those of the rangers and dwarves that passed through. The longing grew gradually during those years and Frodo’s support gave me courage.”

The hobbit sighed heavily and shook his head. That same silver flicker caught Gimli’s eyes again and he turned to study the silver bead braided familiarly into the hobbit’s short curls.

Bilbo caught his gaze with a knowing look.

“I took too long it would seem,” he continued, reaching up idly to lightly touch the bead. “Age finally found me and my now that my heart finally seems willing to return, my body can no longer make the journey. So, like Tauriel, I wait.”

Gimli glances again to the bead and back again to the hobbit’s face.

“Thorin taught me, if you must know,” Bilbo answered the unspoken question on a breathy chuckle. “They really left out quite a bit in their legends, didn’t they?”

With that seemingly rhetorical question, the hobbit seemed to have lapsed into his own moment of reflection;

And Gimli was glad of it.

Every time the hobbit spoke the world seemed to tilt just a little more on its axis.

Gimli could feel his face turning thunderous and thoughtful, his eyes focusing back in on that smooth sheen of silver. It was a center of stability in his rapidly altered reality. That was what the elf had come to mean to him: stability in a rapidly changing world. When each moment had led to another at a pace that left a dwarf winded and unsteady even on solid ground, Legolas had been a point of reference that could always be depended upon.

Whatever had passed between his cousin and the she-elf, and apparently Thorin and this hobbit, it seemed to have little in common with his own situation. There was no immediate attraction. In fact, if being completely truthful, Gimli found little to be admired in Legolas’ features. They were sturdier and more pleasing that most elves he’d met over the years, but even for his own race, he couldn’t completely be called fair. His motions were agile and swift like all his kind, but in Legolas there was a solidity that belied the delicacy those movements.

There was little attraction and no lust at all.

What there was between them seemed to be more than those base qualifiers. What they had was unconditional friendship and an unyielding sense of trust. It hadn’t materialized in the adrenaline of battle or ignited in a glance. It was an affection built, layer upon layer, moment to moment, on a foundation of survival and shared suffering. Their beginning was born in an odd mix of competition and camaraderie.

His situation could hardly be compared to…

Master Baggins was watching him again with that infernally amused smile on his face again.

“I know that look,” the hobbit said fondly, stretching as he stood once more. “And because I do, I’ll tell you something that it took me far too long to understand and far too many others don’t appreciate. Love doesn’t come in a standard form, my friend. The connections that we build are as unique as those that define them.”

“You’ve lived too long among elves,” Gimli grumbled, irritated at the hobbit’s perception.

The laugh that came then was bright, and once more the years seemed to fall away for that one moment.

“Maybe, maybe. There are many days that even I will agree with you on that.” Bilbo smiled before continuing, “Still, elvish posturing or not, its good advice. Define your own life, my lad. And if its an elf that you choose to have help you shape it…  well, you’d not be the first. Nor the last, I’d imagine.”

Master Baggins reached out a withered hand then and before Gimli could process his intentions, had cupped the back of his neck firmly and pulled. The shock of the gesture had Gimli reacting automatically, bending toward the small figure. The barest touch of the hobbit’s brow to his own and Bilbo Baggins was stepping back and away.

“Oh, to see Gloin’s face,” was the last thing Gimli heard as the legendary figure shuffled back the way they had come.

Turning back to the garden, he found two sets of eyes focused on him – one curious, the other fond.

Gimli found himself following a descending path towards the two.

While he was not sure exactly how the elf fit into his life, he knew well enough that there was a place that had been forged for him during their time together. It was a place yet undefined, but it existed.

Gimli figured that what was important wasn’t so much finding that definition right at this moment, but rather whether he wanted to take the trouble to find out.

Well, did he?

“So, this is where you’ve hidden yourself, you lazy sod,” he shouted down, his rough voice loud and abrasive in the gentle atmosphere of the valley.

The immediate smile that curved Legolas’ lips gave him all the answer he needed. And since that was all the response it looked like he would be getting, he felt justified in continuing to bellow at his companion.

“Lazing about with fair company,” and here he threw a roguish wink toward the redhaired elf. “Leaving me to search for you through this veritable maze of vegetation. I swear the plants take delight in twisting the path just to lead me a merry chase.”

“And still you found me.”

The words were simple and teasing, but the look that passed from the elf to him, left his heart stumbling a bit.

“Aye,” he said simply and felt all that he meant to say pass miraculously in that one word. Then he continued brusquely, “And a good deal more difficult it is to do here among your own kind and their treacherous foliage. Shifting shadows and winding paths enough to leave a body jumpy and lost.” He stopped momentarily, recollecting other foliage they’d passed beneath. “Now, nothing like the darkness of Fangorn, but enough to keep one on edge.”

Legolas was openly smiling now and as much as it pleased him, something about the way the elf’s mouth curved, left him irritated just as much.

“And you, just look what this sun-dappled and leaf-shaded maze has done to you.” Gimli pushed on. “Hair unkempt and discipline relaxed as you lounge about at your leisure.”

“You’re insulting my hair?” Legolas queried with mock indignation.

“You look like an untried lad with your hair unbound and lank.”

“I don’t think you have much ground to disparage my hair.” Legolas smirked. “Even when brushed and braided, yours tends to look as though you’ve gone ten rounds with goblin armed with a comb.”

“Well, I never!” Gimli growled good-naturedly before looking towards the female elf. “And are your manners as lazy and unbound as your hair?”

“Tauriel, Gimli. Gimli, Tauriel.” Legolas replied indulgently, shifting himself from the stone bench and taking a seat on the grass just before it. “Take a seat, my friend. We were reacquainting ourselves and reminiscing on times long past. You probably have several tales to tell that would be well appreciated.” Here a glance was given to Tauriel before he turned all his focus on the dwarf. “And, since you seem terribly preoccupied with the respectability of my hair-” There was a slight but weighty pause before he continued, indicating the vacant seat behind him. “-you may correct the issue yourself.”

Gimli stood there in shock, even the barely-there gasp from Tauriel didn’t seem to register. There was no way an elf that had grown up in the shadow of a dwarven kingdom could be ignorant of the significance of what he had proposed. What Legolas suggested was an intimacy only shared with blood family, usually only till the coming-of-age, and that shared between lovers.

Gimli shook his head to clear it and looked at his friend carefully. Legolas’ smile was soft and slight, as though the suggestion had been commonplace and normal. But there was an uncertainty in the warmth of his gaze and the stiffness of his posture spoke to the lie in his nonchalance.

The offer was sincere, and the answer mattered.

Even before he knew what he was doing, Gimli was stepping forward as he had done all his life – boldly and with little thought. As he took up the offered place and his hands, with only the slightest of hesitation, took up the offered hair, Legolas relaxed and turned back towards Tauriel. A lithe but strong back rested warmly against his knees as Gimli let his fingers card through the fair strands learning their heft and weight.

Conversation flowed between the two elves and Gimli added his own heavy tones now and again. It was full of the familiar strains of battle and rigors of travel. Gimli fell into the comforting patterns of anecdotes and humor, while his fingers fell into the familiar patterns needed to weave hair.

The texture was different, but they did as he guided and held better than he could have imagined.

A dwarf’s skill in an elf’s hair.

Looking up towards Tauriel as she related part of her journey from Lothlorien to Rivendell, Gimli thought he caught the glint of gold in her flame-colored hair and the hint of a Durin braid hidden in the strands. He wondered if his cousin’s fingers had first put it there or if Bilbo had simply been kind in his memory.

Suddenly he was speaking, recalling a hunting expedition that Kili has managed to sneak him into. It was the perfect representation of his cousin’s bold kindness and good-natured stupidity. They had gotten lost from the party practically as soon as they had left the settlement and what had followed had been one bad decision followed by the clumsy luck that had always seemed to follow Kili since he’d been old enough to walk.

Tauriel laughed at the retelling of their mad dash from the righteous anger of a male swan with a nesting mate.

Legolas smiled up at Gimli in thanks and when he turned away, Gimli looked back down to the braid he had been weaving while he talked. There among the soft, golden strands was the beginning twists of a Durin’s braid. It shone something softer than mithril, but he couldn’t help but think that it might prove stronger… if he chose to finish it.

It looked like it belonged there, and Gimli couldn’t deny that that pleased him on a hidden level.

He and Legolas had always had a way of forging their own way, in their own way, and at their own pace. Maybe this was just the next step in their journey.

Gimli’s fingers took back up their work, strands weaving and twisting in the afternoon sun.

For something like this, he could dare much.


End file.
